1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for automatically moving at least one animal related means in relation to the body of an animal, comprising a sensing means, a control means and an actuation means.
The invention also relates to a method of automatically moving such an animal related means.
2. Background Art
An apparatus and a method of this kind, respectively, is known from EP-A-0 323 875, comprising a sensor in the form of a periscope-like ultrasonic transmitter/receiver, which scans horizontally in order to find the teats of an animal to be milked. This kind of sensor has proven to suffer from the drawback that the sensor sometimes has problems to find short teats or teats being placed sidewardly on the udder.
Other known periscope-like sensors being equipped with a laser transmitter/receiver suffer from the same drawback.
A milking robot utilising the combination of a metal plate connected to the animal's back and a sensor placed above the animal for determination of the location of the udder is known from EP-A-0 188 303. This milking robot has a serious drawback in that the exact location of the teats cannot be determined, since the locating operation relies only on historical data regarding the specific animal. The data are computed to serve as basis for calculation of the location of the teats.